during your last conversation with Captain Leclere?"

"No; we were quite alone."

"Could your conversation have been overheard by any one?"

"It might, for the cabin door was open -- and -- stay; now I
recollect, -- Danglars himself passed by just as Captain
Leclere was giving me the packet for the grand marshal."

"That's better," cried the abbe; "now we are on the right
scent. Did you take anybody with you when you put into the
port of Elba?"

"Nobody."

"Somebody there received your packet, and gave you a letter
in place of it, I think?"

"Yes; the grand marshal did."

"And what did you do with that letter?"

"Put it into my portfolio."

"You had your portfolio with you, then? Now, how could a
sailor find room in his pocket for a portfolio large enough
to contain an official letter?"

"You are right; it was left on board."

"Then it was not till your return to the ship that you put
the letter in the portfolio?"

"No."

"And what did you do with this same letter while returning
from Porto-Ferrajo to the vessel?"

"I carried it in my hand."

"So that when you went on board the Pharaon, everybody could
see that you held a letter in your hand?"

"Yes."

"Danglars, as well as the rest?"

"Danglars, as well as others."

"Now, listen to me, and try to recall every circumstance
attending your arrest. Do you recollect the words in which
the information against you was formulated?"

"Oh yes, I read it over three times, and the words sank
deeply into my memory."

"Repeat it to me."

Dantes paused a moment, then said, "This is it, word for
word: `The king's attorney is informed by a friend to the
throne and religion, that one Edmond Dantes, mate on board
the Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna, after having
touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been intrusted by
Murat with a packet for the usurper; again, by the usurper,
with a letter for the Bonapartist Club in Paris. This proof
of his guilt may be procured by his immediate arrest, as the
letter will be found either about his person, at his
father's residence, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon.'"
The abbe shrugged his shoulders. "The thing is clear as
day," said he; "and you must have had a very confiding
nature, as well as a good heart, not to have suspected the
origin of the whole affair."

"Do you really think so? Ah, that would indeed be infamous."

"How did Danglars usually write?"

"In a handsome, running hand."

"And how was the anonymous letter written?"

"Backhanded." Again the abbe smiled. "Disguised."

"It was very boldly written, if disguised."

"Stop a bit," said the abbe, taking up what he called his
pen, and, after dipping it into the ink, he wrote on a piece
of prepared linen, with his left hand, the first two or
three words of the accusation. Dantes drew back, and gazed
on the abbe with a sensation almost amounting to terror.

"How very astonishing!" cried he at length. "Why your
writing exactly resembles that of the accusation."

"Simply because that accusation had been written with the
left hand; and I have noticed that" --

"What?"



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